Blog by Eniko Fejer — Food stories RSS

There is a special place in my heart for walnuts. In the garden of our family home back in Hungary we have an almost 60-year-old walnut tree that witnessed all our important family occasions (both happy and sad). My grandparents planted it when they bought the land and built the house on it in the 1970s.

I remember collecting the walnuts, drying them in the garage for weeks in sacks, collecting the fallen leaves from the ground and towards the end of November cracking the walnuts open inside the house. We had years when the tree produced around 8-12 kg of walnuts. After I moved out my mum always made sure we had enough so she always...

When I was a child, in front of our house we had 3 sour cherry trees. The sour cherry was abundant in our household. We made them into jams, cordials, compotes, we ate them raw straight from the trees as an afternoon snack, made cold soup with them, and we baked them into sweets and cakes. One of the bakes were poppy seed and sour cherry strudel. I was a child in the 1990s, ready-made filo pastry was not available on the supermarket shelves yet. Making strudel dough from scratch is an art itself (and takes a village), so strudel was a luxurious summer treat that took a day to...

When I was a child, we had a huge garden full of vegetables and fruits. We had grapes, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, a pear tree, a walnut tree, a plum tree, onions, carrots, watermelons, potatoes, gherkins and the list could go on.

During the summer month gherkins were fermented. This is a very weird thing in Western Europe, but we grew up on it. My grandma picked the gherkins, washed them thoroughly, topped and tailed them and stuffed a 5l jar with them as tight as possible. She put salt, a huge bunch of dill (also picked from the garden), some garlic, horseradish and sourdough bread on the top, covered it loosely and essentially let it rot under the warm sun...

This is a dessert that consists of a milk poached soft meringue that floats on crème anglaise. It is served cold or at room temperature. There is also a French variation ‘Île Flottante’ and a 19^th century American cookbook mentions it as a 4^th July dessert. 

I first came across this dessert in my childhood. My grandmother used to make it, and I remember visiting her on one Sunday afternoon. She used to have a north facing ladder with thick walls and...

A selection of canapés is a popular option on our events before the dinner. Especially during the summer months when they can be enjoyed in the garden with a few drinks.

Pictured below is ‘Steak Tartare on Poppy Seed Bread’

I often got asked if I cook Hungarian or Eastern European food. And the answer is no. I very rarely cook the food of my heritage in this business … if ever to be honest. However, I like to incorporate ‘ingredients’ or ‘elements’ that are typical to the region I grew up. Poppy seeds are one of them. In this part of the world the culture doesn’t really know what to do with them apart from using it in industrial...